Conventionally, in a lithography process to manufacture electronic devices (microdevices) such as a semiconductor device (an integrated circuit or the like) or a liquid crystal display device, mainly, a projection exposure apparatus of a step-and-repeat method (a so-called stepper), projection exposure apparatus of a step-and-scan method (a so-called scanning stepper (also called a scanner)) or the like is mainly used.
Substrates such as a wafer, a glass plate and the like subject to exposure that are used in these types of exposure apparatuses are gradually becoming larger (for example, in the case of a wafer, in every ten years). Although a 300-mm wafer which has a diameter of 300 mm is currently the mainstream, the coming of age of a 450 mm wafer which has a diameter of 450 mm looms near. When the transition to 450 mm wafers occurs, the number of dies (chips) output from a single wafer becomes double or more than the number of chips from the current 300 mm wafer, which contributes to reducing the cost.
However, because the thickness does not necessarily increase in proportion to the size of the wafer, the 450 mm wafer is extremely weak in intensity and rigidity when compared with the 300 mm wafer. Therefore, when focusing on a point such as a carriage of a wafer, it was considered that there was a risk of warping occurring in the wafer, which may negatively effect the exposure accuracy when a means method similar to the current 300 mm wafer was employed. Accordingly, as the carry-in method of the wafer, a proposal is made of a carry-in method or the like that can be employed even when the wafer is a 450 mm wafer in which the wafer is suctioned from above in a non-contact manner by a carrier member equipped with a Bernoulli chuck or the like to maintain the flatness degree (flatness) and performs carry-in onto a wafer holder (holding device) (for example, refer to PTL 1).
However, in the case of employing the non-contact suction from above by the carrier member described above as a carry-in method of the wafer onto the wafer stage (wafer holder), there was a risk of positional deviation (rotation deviation) in a horizontal plane of the wafer being generated at an unacceptable level, to which correction based on measurement results was difficult to perform.